Child marriage in contexts of forced displacement: exploring drivers and decision-making in Jordan through a gender and generational lens

Introduction Humanitarian actors have been slow to address child marriage, despite evidence that it is particularly common in conflict-affected contexts. This article explores the child marriage decision-making process among refuges living in Jordan, using a gender and generational lens. Methods Data used in this paper was collected between 2018 and 2022 and focuses on refugee girls (and young women) who live in Jordan and who married prior to age 18. Survey data was collected from 152 young Syrian brides. In-depth interviews were conducted with 45 Syrian and Palestinian brides—as well as their parents, in-laws, and husbands. Results Our research finds that girls' parents, grooms' parents, grooms, and girls themselves operate under deeply constrained conditions resulting from the legal and economic precarity experienced by refugee communities, and that these disadvantages reinforce gender norms and commitments to clan and culture. Girls' fathers are often beholden to their brothers to provide brides for their nephews; mothers prefer child marriage because of expectations that they will vouchsafe their children's behavior and the family's honor; grooms view marriage to girls as way of achieving adult masculinity and girls who married as children report that they felt like active agents in the process-albeit because they have so few other options. Implications Given the importance of economic precarity, ending child marriage in contexts of forced displacement will require expanding girls' access to education and improving refugees' access to work, which will provide a route through which fathers and young men can demonstrate their adult masculinity, and to allow girls and women some measure of financial independence. Given that displacement now often lasts for decades, the humanitarian sector also needs to focus on addressing the gender norms that leave girls at risk of child marriage.